Aspects of the present disclosure relate generally to wireless communication systems, and more particularly, to apparatus and methods of frequency spectrum usage for communications in a wireless communication system.
Wireless communication networks are widely deployed to provide various communication services such as telephony, video, data, messaging, broadcasts, and so on. Such networks, which are usually multiple access networks, support communications for multiple users by sharing the available network resources. One example of such a network is the UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network (UTRAN). The UTRAN is the radio access network (RAN) defined as a part of the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), a third generation (3G) mobile phone technology supported by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). The UMTS, which is the successor to Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) technologies, currently supports various air interface standards, such as Wideband-Code Division Multiple Access (W-CDMA), Time Division-Code Division Multiple Access (TD-CDMA), and Time Division-Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access (TD-SCDMA). The UMTS also supports enhanced 3G data communications protocols, such as High Speed Packet Access (HSPA), which provides higher data transfer speeds and capacity to associated UMTS networks.
As the demand for mobile broadband access continues to increase, there is an ever increasing desire to maximize the use of allocated spectrum. While a great deal of focus has been in areas of carrier aggregation (e.g., multi-carrier), related to both the downlink (DL) and uplink (UL), packing that spectrum into an operator's allocated spectrum has not received as much attention.
Thus, there is a desire for further improvements in the use of allocated spectrum.